Aloysius Fenchurch
Aloysius Fenchurch is a Ghoul who has lived in Portland since before the great war. Unconcerned with the factions and tribalism within the ruined city, his primary concern is ensuring that he remains on the cutting edge of everything around him. History Prior to the great war, Aloysius Fenchurch worked as a programmer at a start-up company in Portland that developed software for Terminals. Rather then the standard RobCo machines, he preferred to work with open-source platforms and community-lead development. On the morning of the great war, he was caught in the open as he was out engaging in his regular cardio as a part of his ten thousand steps a day routine. As such, he missed the warnings of what was going on and was unable to find shelter until it was too late. Aloysius was not killed in the initial Chinese missile strike, nor the immediate aftermath. However, he was subjected to a massive dose of radiation, the full effects of which would not become obvious immediately. Retreating back to his converted loft apartment, he took shelter and tried to figure out what was going on and, more to the point, what this would mean for his wine tasting party he had planned for the evening. Realising that the latter was untenable, he called it off, only to find that the phone lines had gone down. After several days he began to venture forth from his apartment to scour for organically-grown fair-trade supplies. What he found was that the city had descended into chaos as packs of armed citizens and the remaining military forces fought for control of the remaining resources. Terrified for his life (and shocked that he had not forseen this trend and gotten on it ahead of the wave) he none the less managed to acquire enough food to keep alive, while also collecting a few novels from his favourite independent bookstore along the way. Once safely ensconced in his apartment (and using some of his distressed timber furniture to secure the doors and windows), Aloysius planned to ride out whatever was going on in the hope that order would be restored and that he could find a well-paying job on the bleeding edge of whatever new form of society emerged. Instead he watched as the skies were first clouded with ash and then turned a very unfashionable green. Despite this, he would be forced to venture out again and again to procure more supplies, watching in distress as his favourite artisanal bakeries and vegan cafes fell into ruin. He began to notice some changes in himself as well. His luxuriant lumberjack-styled beard was the first to go, falling out along with the rest of his hair. His skin began to flake off, taking with it his fashionable tattoos and replacing them with a wrinkled, leathery new surface. The radiation was mutating him into a new form, one that was far less suited to the rugged outdoorsy look had worked so hard to cultivate. None the less, necessity continued to force him outdoors in order to keep himself fed. It was on one of these expeditions that he encountered other survivors who were in the throws of the same condition as him. It was at this point that Aloysius realised his new calling; he was, in fact, a trendsetter because he had horribly mutated before anyone else. It was this calling that saw him begin to emerge from his protective shelter and venture out more among the people of the city, bringing to them the gift of the latest postapocalyptic trends. Personality Aloysius Fenchurch prides himself on his individuality and sense of style. He has the amazing ability to spot a trend coming and hop onto it as fast as possible before it becomes widely known and popular. He will then be able to spread the news about this latest development while pointing out that he was into it before it was popular or well known. Be it artisan Brahmin cheese, hand-crafted Pipe weapons, ballistic-reinforced flannel shirts or whatever other new and amazing discovery he has made. He is also committed to the idea of ensuring that Portland remains ‘weird’. Or, as he puts it, ‘not turning into another cookie-cutter picket fence wasteland with the same raiders, slavers, robots and super mutants as everywhere else.’ Despite not being a raider, Aloysius is an avid Raid-It user, and a prominent figure in the somewhat detailed Portland spur of the network. He spends a lot of his time talking about how he was using the network before anyone else. Appearance Before his transformation, Fenchurch had carefully cultivated a rugged faux-outdoorsman look, including a thick beard and a number of colourful tattoos. Neither feature survived his transformation due to the combination of hair loss and shedding skin. None the less, he maintained some of the elements of the look, particularly through a love of thick, square-rimmed glasses, beanies, flannel shirts and ugly sweaters (Which are only worn ironically) Category:Cascadia Category:Characters Category:Ghouls